Digital Commons Network^™

The “Right” Right To Environmental Protection: What We Can Discern From The American And Indian Constitutional Experience, Deepa Badrinarayana

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Should there be a constitutional right to environmental protection? Arguments for and against are aplenty, but there is no consensus on this issue. Drawing on the experience within the U.S. and Indian Constitutions, this article posits that the right to environmental protection has normative and practical significance, because a constitutional right attaches to an individual and, hence, can protect an individual from environmental harms, whereas environmental laws, that focus primarily on reducing adverse environmental impact on a general population, may not. It further argues that, to be effective, three constitutionally-embedded rights that are central to preserving the right to environmental …

Managed Relocation: Reducing The Risk Of Biological Invasion, Edward E. Clark Jr., Dan Simberloff, Mark Schwartz, Brent Stewart, John Peter Thompson

National Invasive Species Council

Key Finding

Any organism that is relocated to a novel ecosystem has the potential to become an invasive species or spread “hitching” invasive species, or both. Managed Relocation is not congruent with Executive Order 13112 to the extent that it might facilitate “economic or environmental harm or harm to human, animal, or plant health.” Consequently, the actions by federal agencies or those entities supported by federal funding to engage in managed relocation need to be addressed in a manner consistent with EO 13751 Section 3(3), which compels Agencies to:

Refrain from authorizing, funding, or implementing actions that are likely to …

Structuring A Market-Oriented Federal Eco-Information Policy, Peter S. Menell

Peter Menell

No abstract provided.

Getting Steamy With Property Law: Are Geothermal Resources A Mineral Right In West Virginia?, Joshua A. Lanham

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Watershed Based Policy Tools For Reducing Nutrient Flows To Surface Waters: Addressing Nutrient Enrichment And Harmful Algal Blooms In The United States, John A. Hoornbeek, Joshua Filla, Soumya Yalamanchili

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Tale Of Two Trade Powers: Balancing Investor-State Dispute Settlement And Environmental Risk Between The European Union And United States In A Changing Political Climate, Sarah Ben-Moussa

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Blueprint For Survival: A New Paradigm For International Environmental Emergencies, Claire Wright

Fordham Environmental Law Review

No abstract provided.

Early Career Experts Essential For Planetary Sustainability, Michelle Mei Ling Lim, Abigail J Lynch, Álvaro Fernandez-Llamazares, Et Al.

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Early-career experts can play a fundamental role in achieving planetary sustainability by bridging generational divides and developing novel solutions to complex problems. We argue that intergenerational partnerships and interdisciplinary collaboration among early-career experts will enable emerging sustainability leaders to contribute fully to a sustainable future. We review 16 international, interdisciplinary, and sustainability-focused early-career capacity building programs. We conclude that such programs are vital to developing sustainability leaders of the future and that decision-making for sustainability is likely to be best served by strong institutional cultures that promote intergenerational learning and involvement.

The Ecowas Court, Activist Forces, And The Pursuit Of Environmental And Socioeconomic Justice In Nigeria, Okechukwu Emmanuel Effoduh

LLM Theses

The thesis has two objectives. The first (and central) objective is to examine the Community Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS Court (a sub-regional international court in West Africa), and its role within the West African region, especially how the Court has served as a resource for the Activist Forces that operate in the sub-region, in their pursuit of Environmental and Socioeconomic Justice in Nigeria. The second goal of this thesis, which is ancillary to the first, is to investigate the Courts jurisprudence in three landmark cases: SERAP v. Nigeria & Anor (2010); …

Who Should Protect The Forest: Conservation Easements In The Forest Legacy Program, Jessica Owley, Stephen J. Tulowiecki

Jessica Owley

No abstract provided.

Preservation Is A Flawed Mitigation Strategy, Jessica Owley

Jessica Owley

The objective of the Clean Water Act is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters. To help achieve that objective, the Clean Water Act limits the ability to dredge or fill a wetland. To do so, one must first obtain a section 404 permit. These permits, which are issued by the Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) with coordination and oversight from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), require project proponents to avoid, minimize, and compensate the harms of any wetland destruction or modification. Compensatory mitigation is a troubling concept in wetlands regulation because it …

Foreword, Emma Garrison, Jessica Owley

Jessica Owley

This is an introduction to the fifth Annual Review of Environmental and Natural Resources Law, providing brief explanations and analyses of cases and changes in environmental law in 2003.

Cultural Heritage Conservation Easements: The Problem Of Using Property Law Tools For Heritage Protection, Jessica Owley

Jessica Owley

Conservation easements are quickly becoming a favored tool for protection of cultural heritage. Perpetual encumbrances on the use of private land, most cultural heritage conservation easements are held by private conservation organizations known as land trusts. With minimal public oversight, land trusts decide which lands to protect in perpetuity and what the rules regarding use of those lands should be. A variety of concerns arise when protection of cultural heritage resides with private organizations. First, as governments abdicate cultural heritage protection to private organizations, the public’s role in site protection shifts. When private organizations and landowners negotiate which properties to …

Piney Run: The Permits Are Not What They Seem, Jessica Owley

Jessica Owley

In 2001, the Fourth Circuit addressed the permit shield provision of the Clean Water Act and found it to provide broad-scale protection for polluters. In Piney Run Preservation Association v. County Commissioners of Carroll County, the Fourth Circuit held that facilities with discharge permits are protected from lawsuits even when discharging pollutants not contained within their permits. Under this ruling, permit holders may discharge, without fear of penalty, any disclosed pollutant within the reasonable expectation of the permitting authority. This decision is worrisome because it does not protect the goals of the Clean Water Act and deprives the public of …

A Response To The Ipcc Fifth Assessment, Sarah J. Adams-Schoen, Deepa Badrinarayana, Cinnamon Carlarne, Robin Kundis Craig, John C. Dernbach, Keith H. Hirokawa, Alexandra B. Klass, Katrina Fischer Kuh, Stephen R. Miller, Jessica Owley, Shannon M. Roesler, Jonathan Rosenbloom, Inara Scott, David Takacs

Jessica Owley

This collection of essays is the initial product of the second meeting of the Environmental Law Collaborative, a group of environmental law scholars that meet to discuss important and timely environmental issues. Here, the group provides an array of perspectives arising from the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Each scholar chose one passage from one of the IPCC’s three Summaries for Policymakers as a jumping-off point for exploring climate change issues and responding directly to the reports. The result is a variety of viewpoints on the future of how law relates to climate change, a result …

The New Environmental Law: Forest Certification, Errol E. Meidinger

Errol Meidinger

This paper argues that the rapidly expanding practice of forest certification, together with similar developments in other sectors, is creating a new template for environmental law. Nongovernmental organizations and some industry actors are establishing binding regulatory standards, systems for monitoring compliance, sanctions for non-compliance, and, when things work well, methods for assessment and revision. It locates these developments as a part of “phase 3” of environmental law, which also involves a proliferation of other initiatives beyond traditional regulation. Finally, it offers a preliminary discussion of the efficacy, adaptability, coherence, and legitimacy of the emergent system.

The Administrative Law Of Global Private-Public Regulation: The Case Of Forestry, Errol E. Meidinger

Errol Meidinger

An important ensemble of transnational, transgovernmental regulatory institutions has emerged in the forestry sector over the past decade. These forest certification programmes set global standards for proper forest management and apply them through institutionalized licensing and inspection programmes. Similar programmes are appearing in other sectors. Developed largely by environmental NGOs and industry associations rather than governments, forest certification programmes are nominally voluntary, but are becoming increasingly mandatory in practice. They are also gradually linking with government regulatory and management programmes in various ways, while remaining in tension both with each other and with government programmes. The overall regulatory system is …

Privatizing Regulatory Enforcement: A Preliminary Assessment Of Citizen Suits Under Federal Environmental Laws, Barry Boyer, Errol Meidinger

Errol Meidinger

This article provides a preliminary assessment of the potential effects of the privatization of regulatory enforcement and speculates on what such a realignment might portend for the regulatory process. Based primarily on an indepth review of the first wave of citizen suits brought under the federal Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, it identifies four key problems that can undermine the citizen suit as a device for regulatory enforcement: (1) Citizen suits must surmount a series of doctrinal barriers that could make it difficult or impossible to mount an effective private enforcement campaign. Courts have generally been able to control …

Forest Certification As Environmental Law Making By Global Civil Society, Errol E. Meidinger

Errol Meidinger

Published in Social and Political Dimensions of Forest Certification, Errol Meidinger, Christopher Elliott & Gerhard Oesten, eds.

"Private" Environmental Regulation, Human Rights, And Community, Errol E. Meidinger

Errol Meidinger

Private organizations have recently established numerous programs aimed at improving the environmental performance of industry. Many of the new programs seek to define and enforce standards for environmental management, and to make it difficult for producers not to participate in them. They claim, explicitly and implicitly, to promote the public interest. They take on functions generally performed by government regulatory programs, and may change or even displace government programs. Private programs thus have the potential to significantly reshape domestic and international policy institutions. This paper describes three major private environmental regulatory programs applicable to forestry and discusses their implications for …

The Ecology Of Breastfeeding, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

This essay reflects on the ecological advantages of breastfeeding, and argues that that laws promoting and supporting breastfeeding should be included among laws labeled as “environmental.”

The Ramsar Convention On Wetlands: Assessment Of International Designations Within The United States, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

The Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat, more commonly knows as the Ramsar Convention, is one international framework used to protect wetlands. At this time, the United States has designated 22 sites as wetlands of international importance. In this Article, Royal C. Gardner and Kim Diana Connolly analyze survey data collected from each of these 22 sites to determine whether and how Ramsar designation benefits these wetland areas. The authors first provide a brief overview of the Ramsar Convention, including its function within the United States. They then break down the survey data, looking at both …

Spinning Sackett: Assessing New And Traditional Media Coverage So Far, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

No abstract provided.

Survey Says: Army Corps No Scalian Despot, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

Justice Antonin Scalia and others have described the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ('the Corps') administration of the permitting process as burdensome and inefficient. Empirical data gathered from the Corps, however, do not bear out this assessment. In this Article, Kim Diana Connolly evaluates data collected from Corps Customer Service Surveys as well as the apparent disconnect between applicant experiences and the public's negative perception of the permitting process. She begins the Article with an overview of the Corps' regulatory permitting process, then lays out the history of and context for the Corps' Customer Service Surveys. Next, she summarizes available …

Has The Field Grown Too Complex For A State-Specific "Handbook" On Environmental Law? (Reviewing The Government Institute's South Carolina Environmental Law Handbook (3rd Ed. 2000)), Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Divide: Examining The Role Of The Public Trust In Protecting Coastal And Wetland Resources, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

No abstract provided.

Coastal Regulation In South Carolina: Will The Rising Sea Change The Nature Of Governing Law, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

No abstract provided.

Keeping Wetlands Wet: Are Existing Protections Enough?, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

No abstract provided.

An Introduction To The Essential Fish Habitat (Efh) Consultation Process For The South Atlantic Region, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

No abstract provided.

A Decade Of Uncertainty: Precon, Leaked Guidance, And Where To Go From Here?, Kim Diana Connolly

Kim Diana Connolly

No abstract provided.